Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? When you can use disaster capitalism and profit on the "volatility" provided by such events?
Thanks, Keynes.
s/Keynes/Klein/
Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
121–130 of 223 posts
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#122From what I understand, Japan thinks the climate is getting warmer due to human action, and serious steps need to be taken to deal with it. I have a question for the global climate change skeptics out there. Are there any major countries in the world besides the US and maybe Russia where the central government agrees with you on what is happening and what to do about it? (If there are give us some links)
Does the USA have a central government with a central policy? Obama believed in climate change even if Trump doesn't, most of congress, even on the right, believe in some amount of climate change (e.g. McCain). I'm really at a loss to find that unified anti climate change sentiment in the states. It's more like a democracy where politicians and electorates are allowed to have different opinions.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's very likely that local band-aids are the most effective way to deal with this. Your train example is a pretty good one, but you've mixed up the metaphor. Here, "stepping out of the way" = mass migrations out of coastal cities. "A mechanized winch that temporarily lifts us over the train" = flood control projects like in Tokyo, Houston, Venice, or the Netherlands. "Calling the train company and asking them to sto…
> I'd argue that the actual solution to global warming will be more akin to "stepping out of the way": people will evacuate from major cities, major cities will be destroyed, And the people too poor to evacuate will stick it out in the city hoping for the best, and die in the aftermath of the next catastrophe.
A mass evacuation out of Houston for a hurricane is impossible. I have seen it time and time again - every time they try to evacuate us, a bunch of people just die in the streets, and then there's the risk of a NOLA situation where all the people who are poor to evacuate at every whisper of hurricane die of disease from disgusting floodwaters, or exposure. Or drown.
The population of the Greater Houston area is 5.6 million. Just look at the map https://goo.gl/maps/rU1ZWvfjy9w You can get out via 45, 59/69, i-10, 290, 69NE, or hell even 249. It's quite possibly the most spider-webbed city in the country. You can go to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio.
And every hurricane those freeways are deadlocked, and people are caught by the storm from behind, and old people's oxygen tanks explode on their busses because of texas heat, and that's without a full-blown evacuation ordered. We even run out of gasoline, the Oil City.
I'm not sure what the solution is but yea, evacuation out of Houston is not an option. I just wish there was some way to tackle the "big truck" mentality out here so we can start reducing our contribution to climate change. Our one attempt to build a inner-city metro is a comical failure that people just crash their giant trucks[1] into on a regular basis because they built the damn thing on ground level on main street.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems that we could be headed for a mass extinction, whether or not humans manage to survive thousands of years longer. We aren’t going to entirely destroy life on the planet, which will eventually recover great diversity (speciation to fill new ecological niches in some new stable equilibrium) within a few million years after we’re gone, but it will look significantly different than what we are familiar with. Tha…
This issue is too political for normal people to properly understand. I don't mean to offend you personally but there's little value in the feelings of someone who's been immersed in a social atmosphere of global warming propaganda, calls to action, and pressure to shut down dissenting voices. Even scientists can't safely publish work on positive effects of climate change or areas where it's not as bad as previously…
The Permian extinction was a global warming extinction. The atmosphere was methane and hydrogen sulfide. Oxygen levels dropped too low for anything to survive... read the book 'Under Green Skies' which makes the case for that.
There are reasonable people predicting that type of mass extinction will occur within our lifetime. This blog makes a pretty good argument it will happen: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/extinction.html?m=1
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#125It's so crazy to me that everyone in vulnerable places--Tokyo and Houston in the article for example--are happy to spend hundreds of millions, even billions, to put a bandaid on their local climate change problems. It seems like they all acknowledge the reality and danger of climate change and are willing to spend money on it. In TFA Houston wants $400 million to build a reservoir. They seem to acknowledge that thing…
The way I see it, the only possible way to stop the coming disaster is for the entire world to come together, collectively, and limit population with sterilization lottery programs. We need to bring things down to 1 billion or less people. Nations that don't volunteer willingly will have to be drug along by force.
This probably won't happen, though. We're f#@^ed.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#126Interestingly, the official website doesn't mention climate change at all, as far as I can see [1]. Instead, it claims that the purpose of the tunnels is to protect the areas surrounding some smaller rivers upstream of Tokyo, which are on flood plains and regularly used to get flooded (no climate change required, just regular rain season/typhoon does this). Now due to urban sprawl more people want to live there, exac…
This official interview mentions the intended purpose and use over time.
https://www.travel.co.jp/guide/article/5796/
To protect from climate change and the increased risk of flooding.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#127I may not understand the scope of this project, but when I read the $2 billion, my thought was "wow that's cheap!" Consider the Big Dig or the current Seattle tunnel, at $14B+ and $3B+ respectively.
I'd guess that part of it is that people tunnels need to keep water out, and drain tunnels want to let water in. Generally keeping water out is a lot harder than letting it in.
There may also be extra safety requirements for people tunnels that could raise costs. A tunnel used for cars for example will need some way to deal with accidents. Imagine a big accident in the middle of the tunnel, perhaps with a fire, during rush hour.
You'll need some way to get rescuers in even if the public traffic lanes are completely blocked both ways by the accident. If there is also a fire you might need a way for people on foot to quickly get out.
These requirements could increase the space requirements for the tunnel, driving up costs. They might also cause limits on where the tunnel can go or how deep it can go, which may drive up costs.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't prisoner's dilemma though - everyone has a full ability to communicate with each other. That breaks a pretty basic assumption. To stretch your analogy, you are playing prisoners dilemma with someone who is swearing he will snitch, has a lawyer who is saying "my client will cooperate fully with the police" and who has signed a document explaining the facts.
In the classical prisoner's dilemma it doesn't matter whether the prisoners can fully communicate with each other or not as long as it hold that they cannot change their move after seeing what the other guy moved. And it's perverse because they both have a strategy A that strictly dominates B but if they both play A then they're worse off than if they both played B.
That is equivalent to not communicating. In the classical prisoner's dilemma, you do assume that the other person will make their decision independently of you. (Which is also equivalent to not communicating.) Real humans don't do what the classical case says they do, because humans can empathize with each other and work together even without explicitly communicating. Political organizations, though? Not as much.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't prisoner's dilemma though - everyone has a full ability to communicate with each other. That breaks a pretty basic assumption. To stretch your analogy, you are playing prisoners dilemma with someone who is swearing he will snitch, has a lawyer who is saying "my client will cooperate fully with the police" and who has signed a document explaining the facts.
In the classical prisoner's dilemma it doesn't matter whether the prisoners can fully communicate with each other or not as long as it hold that they cannot change their move after seeing what the other guy moved. And it's perverse because they both have a strategy A that strictly dominates B but if they both play A then they're worse off than if they both played B.
This thread is already insane in that the metaphor is getting more complicated than what it was trying to explain, but...
...trying to minimise one's carbon footprint is, quite obviously, an iterated prisoner's dilemma: you can observe other's behaviour every day (and vice versa) and react accordingly.
The problem is that nobody plays it with a single other person, but with "all of humanity" instead. Any change in others' behaviour will almost certainly be only gradual, and not accessible to daily perception.
Re: Tokyo Is Preparing for Floods ‘Beyond Anything We’ve Seen’
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Every single person who claims they believe global climate change is a very serious, and man-made, problem absolutely should be taking personal steps now to address it. Telecommuting is a thing. Home-solar is a thing. Electric cars are a thing. Quit telling _others_ to solve the problems, and start doing it personally, now. Let me get it straight, you mean Leonardo Di Caprio, George Clooney and Al Gore should live…
Cognitive dissonance is unbecoming. Spewing tons of CO2 en route to a CO2 control conference, when the same ends could be met via teleconference, is hypocrisy. You can live well while reducing your impact on the environment. They certainly have the money to.
To quote a dialog I once overheard at a marathon's finish line:
"You run a marathon and smoke?"
"It's better than just smoking."